


Fortunate Son

by thegrumblingirl



Category: Superman - All Media Types, Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Angst, Complete, F/M, Hopeful Ending, M/M, Multi, but I decided to leave it as it was, sorry if anyone was hoping for a continuation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-11-13 09:10:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11181570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegrumblingirl/pseuds/thegrumblingirl
Summary: 'Come back to me' — words she'd whispered to the sky those first weeks after Superman had first disappeared. Words she'd whispered into his ear as he was lying in that hospital bed, looking so familiar yet alien without his suit.'I'm always around,' he'd assured her. She'd heard those words before.





	Fortunate Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countermeasures](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countermeasures/gifts).



> Ahahaaha so countermeasures and I were watching Superman Returns, and by the end we desperately needed a fix-it. Specifically, an OT3-implying fix-it because cAN THESE BABIES JUST NEVER BE HAPPY. Dammit.
> 
> Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY1Uwm5rZ4zMMUQc77FQXglVKdAvPhjXU

_Some folks are born to wave the flag_  
Oh, that red, white, and blue  
_And when the band plays 'Hail to the chief'_  
_Oh, they point the canon at you_

_— Fortunate Son, Credence Clearwater Revival_

 

Lois knew that what she had done was wrong.

Being Lois Lane the fearless, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter was easy, most of the time. It was being Lois — mother, fiancée, ordinary human — that she did not always understand.

She wasn't invincible, much as she had everyone else convinced otherwise. She had won that Pulitzer for a story that she'd written not only because the world had been abandoned, but because he had left her behind. On her own, pregnant — and furious. In truth, she had not believed he would come back; not to Earth, and not to her. She had all but given up hope.

She had never told Richard the whole truth, either. He'd known Jason was someone else's child and, given who she was, may well have always suspected who the father was, but he'd never pressed her for an answer, he had let her keep that secret. He'd let her do a lot of things. And now, she'd gone and told Superman while he'd been in a coma; and what did that say about her? Lois wasn't sure she'd wished for him to hear her, but she'd so desperately needed him to hear her. To wake up.

'Come back to me' — words she'd whispered to the sky those first weeks after Superman had first disappeared. Words she'd whispered into his ear as he was lying in that hospital bed, looking so familiar yet _alien_ without his suit.

'I'm always around,' he'd assured her. She'd heard those words before.

* * *

"I'm always around."

With that, he flew off — that, and one of his damn smirks, as if he had any _right_ to look at her like that, as if... Lois stopped herself from going down that road. Not tonight. Turning, she looked up at Jason, who was still at the window.

"Go back to bed, hon," she called up, smiling when he grinned down at her. He loved Superman, that much she knew, even if she wasn't sure how much of the rest of it he understood. It was selfish, she knew, but in a way she was glad Jason was still so young, as confusing and frightening as his ordeal had been. The questions would begin soon enough — and Lois had no idea how to handle them.

"There you are," Richard's voice startled her out of her thoughts. He was standing in the open door to the living room, leaning against the glass, his briefcase still in his hand, his coat draped over the other arm. "Didn't know stargazing was your thing, Miss Lane," he teased, repeating the line he'd first said to her many years ago, finding her out on the balcony of her downtown apartment, seven months pregnant and looking up into the sky and hoping for... something. Anything. He'd done it to lighten the mood, to make her laugh about the elephant in the room instead of fear it. He hadn't said it in a while.

Seeing him smile at her now the same way he did when they woke up in the mornings, or when they had time to go to lunch together, or when he came home to her every night, Lois crossed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around him, smiling into his neck as he made to return the embrace before remembering the briefcase and letting it drop to the floor along with his coat first. For a moment, Lois allowed herself to just be, to soak up the warmth of his body and his heart, his affection whispered into her hair as naturally as breathing. Lifting her head, Lois nudged her nose against his jaw and he pulled back to be able to look her in the eye.

"What is it?" he asked quietly.

"Superman was just here," Lois decided to start with that. Any story was only ever as good as its lead-in.

"He was here, why? Something wrong?" Richard tensed under her hands, and Lois splayed her fingers to keep him still — to keep him close against her.

"No, everything's fine. He recovered well."

He nodded slowly. "Good. I guess he gave those nurses the fright of their lives when he discharged himself," he joked, but Lois could tell it was for her benefit rather than his.

"Richard," she began, and he tensed again, as though he knew what was coming. Perhaps he did. For all that she'd held herself apart from him when it came to this, when it came to Superman, he knew her so very well. Sometimes, Lois wondered if motherhood, even if it had changed little else about her, had made her knowable at last. If that was the case, then she was done denying at least this. "When we visited him at the hospital, I—I told him, and I had to. I had to tell him first, I couldn't _wait_ —"

"Lois," Richard interrupted her, not unkindly, which was more than she deserved given how she'd led him by the nose for years, or how she was babbling at him now. "It's alright. I know. I guess I always did."

She reared back, not breaking their embrace, but incensed enough on his behalf (or hers?) to lay one of her hands against his chest and _push_. How dare he — how dare he _absolve_ her for this, before she'd even made her damn confession.

"Jason is Superman's son," she told him forcefully, regretting her angry tone even as she was determined to lay it all out, to say out loud what she never had in five years, what she had whispered for the first time days ago, and into the ear of a man trapped inside his own unresponsive body. "It wasn't a euphemism, and I—I was in love with him, and I thought he loved me, too. But then he disappeared without even... he explained why he left, and I don't begrudge him trying to find Krypton. Hell, I'd have probably told him to go, just as—as long as he'd come back to me. It's never giving me the chance to say it that I can't forgive. He can't walk on water, Richard, he's not our messiah, and we all know I'm not the Virgin Mary." At that, a laugh escaped her that sounded suspiciously like a sob, so she bit it back and held her head high. "I don't know what Jason might be able to do. When he pushed that piano across the room, I don't think he realised what that meant, or what he was doing. But his allergies are nearly gone already, he hasn't used his inhaler in days. And if that means what I think it might, then I can't—I won't deny him access to his—to the one person who can explain it to him. You're his father, Richard, and you always will be," Lois raised her hand from Richard's chest and caressed his cheek. "And I'll be yours for as long as you'll have me," she whispered, needing him to understand, needing him to _believe_. Needing herself to do the same.

"I believe that's my line," Richard murmured, then bent down to kiss her gently. Pulling away, his hands drifted to her waist. "I'm glad you told me, and I'm glad he's alright, too. I know that... knowing he's around isn't easy for you, and I won't pretend it is for me. But after what happened, I understand why you feel for him the way you do."

Lois made to protest, but Richard shook his head. "If you can't be honest with me, Lois, at least be honest with yourself."

"Don't condescend," Lois warned him now, ignoring that he'd know he's struck a nerve if he'd gotten her hackles to rise.

"I'm not," he tried to pacify her, but she'd already pushed away from him, stepping out of his embrace and past him into the living room. "Lois," he said to her retreating back, and Lois didn't have to turn around to know that he was standing with one hand on his hip, the other rubbing his brow the way he did when trying to think his way out of sparking an argument — the occupational hazard, so to speak, when an outspoken editor and an equally opinionated reporter shared life, roof, and dinner table. "I'm trying to tell you that I trust you. I'm trying to tell you that I get it."

"You get what?" Lois demanded when she turned.

"Why the world needs Superman."

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr: @screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse, or on Twitter: @andreamareike.


End file.
